UPDATE JAN. 10, 2020, NBC NEWS: IRAN ADMITS IT SHOT DOWN THE UKRAINIAN PASSENGER PLANE.
Fliers recruiting suicide terrorists to attack US distributed in Iran
Students at Iran’s Islamic Azad University are being offered a novel new career choice — suicide terrorist.
News of the jihadist search was reported by Iranian media.
Leaflets are being distributed at the influential school urging students to sign up for Jihad missions against the United States and Israel to avenge the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
“Registration for volunteers to commit a suicide attack against the United States and Israel,” it blares. “Hard revenge is underway for those criminals who killed Qassem Soleimani.”
The flyer, claiming to quote the words of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, carries additional messages of encouragement, including “kill all infidels.”
MAYBE THE SHOCK OF SUCH A REQUEST LED TO THE CURRENT PROTESTS BY STUDENTS THERE?
MASS PROTESTS HAVE BROKEN OUT AGAIN IN IRAN.
Protesters chanted anti-regime slogans in Tehran against the authorities, the semi-official Fars news agency said in a rare report on anti-government unrest.
Demonstrators ripped up pictures of Qassem Soleimani.
On Twitter, videos showed protesters demanding that Khamenei step down because of the disaster.
“Commander-in-chief resign, resign,” hundreds chanted in front of Tehran’s Amir Kabir university.
Ukraine International Airlines said Iran should have closed the airport. The carrier said it had received no indication it faced a threat and was cleared for take off.
In Twitter messages, angry Iranians asked why the plane was allowed to take off with tensions in Iran so high.
ABOVE: A video taken by locals near the Tehran airport, showing the plane on fire in the air, then crashing.
Iran Bulldozed plane crash site before Ukrainian investigators arrived.US, British, and Canadian intelligence have determined that the Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran on Wednesday morning was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile — a conclusion Iran has strongly denied.
Images and reports from the crash site, just outside the Iranian capital, Tehran, show at least one bulldozer working in the debris at the site, where the Boeing 737-800 crashed Wednesday morning, killing all 176 people on board.
Giancarlo Fiorella, a researcher for the investigative website Bellingcat, shared a thread of photos that he said showed heavy machinery at work.
FROM WASHINGTON POST:
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, wrote on Facebook that his team wanted to search for possible debris from a Tor air-defense missile, after seeing online reports about the discovery of possible fragments of one near the crash site.
In London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined the growing consensus around the missile strike. He cited a “body of information that the flight was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”
The Washington Post obtained a video that allegedly shows the moment the airliner is struck in midair. The video, first published by the New York Times, purportedly shows a missile intercepting the aircraft, followed by a loud boom.
The investigation is further muddled as a preliminary report from an Iranian investigation indicated that the so-called black boxes aboard the plane — which harbor data and cockpit communications — were damaged and lost parts of their memory, the Associated Press reported.
The Iranian report also said that "no radio messages were received from the pilot regarding unusual situations" and that eyewitnesses recalled seeing the plane engulfed in flames before the crash, the AP reported.
ABC NEWS: 'Highly likely' Iran shot down Ukrainian airliner
Video appears to show the moment a missile hit the Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed in Iran.The video was verified by The New York Times on Thursday.
The Times said the video appeared to show the missile hitting the plane above Parand, Iran, where the signal from the plane's transponder was last received.
There was a small explosion, but the plane remained flying for several minutes, The Times reported.
ABC NEWS, AUSTRALIA :
Footage of Ukrainian plane exploding mid-air emerges as intelligence blames Iran.
Iran plane crash: Canada says evidence shows jet was shot down by Iran.
WAITING FOR THE AMERICAN LEFTIST SOCIALIST TO CRY "RUSSIA DID IT AND TRUMP HELPED!"
AND ABOUT POOR, SWEET, 'HEROIC' GENERAL SOLEIMANI?
A DOZEN FACTS IGNORED AS TO WHY THE U.S. TOOK OUT SULEIMANI IN IRAQ:
1- In April 2019, the State Department announced Iran was responsible for killing 608 U.S. troops.
2- Iranian proxies launched rocket attacks against Baghdad International Airport in early December, 2019.
"We're used to harassing fire," a military official speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters. "But the pace of (that) was (previously) pretty episodic. ... (Now) the level of complexity is increasing, the volume of rockets being shot in a single volley is increasing and is very concerning to us."
3- One U.S. civilian contractor was killed and several service members were wounded in a rocket attack targeting a military base in northern Iraq on December 27, 2019, according to the U.S. military.
4- Soleimani (actually, it's Suleimani) was the head of the Iranian and Iranian-backed forces carrying out those operations killing American troops.
5- According to the State Department, 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 were orchestrated by Soleimani.
6- As recently as 2015, a travel ban and United Nations Security Council resolutions had barred Suleimani from leaving Iran.
7- Suleimani was the long-running leader of the elite intelligence wing called Quds Force – which itself has been a designated terror group since 2007.
8- Months ago, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had deemed Suleimani equally as dangerous as Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
9- “Soleimani is our leader” had been photographed spray-painted on windows by Iran-backed militiamen at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
10- A two-day siege outside of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad came to an end January 2, 2020.
AsThe two-day siege outside of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad came to an end recent as 2015, a travel ban and United Nations Security Council resolutions had barred Soleimani from leaving Iran.
11- Even an Obama cabinet member and a former Democrat presidential candidate as well as military officers support Trump's take-down of the Iranian general. Joe Lieberman agreed with North and Trump on the hit.
“Trump’s order to take out Qassem Soleimani was morally, constitutionally and strategically correct,” Lieberman wrote. “It deserves more bipartisan support than the begrudging or negative reactions it has received thus far from my fellow Democrats.”
"Some Democrats have said that killing Soleimani will lead us into war with Iran. In fact, Soleimani and the Quds Force have been at war with the U.S. for years," Lieberman argued. "It is more likely that his death will diminish the chances of a wider conflict because the demonstration of our willingness to kill him will give Iranian leaders (and probably others like Kim Jong Un) much to fear."
He also noted that President Barack Obama ordered drone strikes and attacks on targets that presented threats without specific congressional approval. He cited the deaths of Anwar al Awlaki and Osama bin Laden.
“If enough voters decide that Democrats can’t be trusted to keep America safe, Mr. Trump won’t have much trouble winning a second term in November,” Lieberman wrote.also agreed.
Obama's head of the Dept.of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson said Trump had every right to hit Suleimani.
"General Soleimani, he was a lawful military objective, and the president, under his constitutional authority as commander in chief, had ample domestic legal authority to take him out without an additional congressional authorization. Whether he was a terrorist or a general in a military force that was engaged in armed attacks against our people, he was a lawful military objective,” Johnson stated in an interview.
The U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Soleimani is a win for every "freedom-loving person," retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North said.
"The bottom line of it is, Soleimani has been a purveyor of terrorism for the Iranians for better than a decade," North said Thursday.
"More than any other individual since Usama Bin Laden ... He's killed more Americans than anybody else since then."
North, who served on the National Security Council staff during President Ronald Reagan's administration, added that Soleimani's death will "reduce the number of terror attacks dramatically."
Former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and a former CIA director, retired Gen. David Petraeus is keenly familiar with Qassem Suleimani.
Petraeus spoke to Foreign Policy on Friday about the implications of an action he called “more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden.”
12- Initially, Iraqi citizens were shown dancing in the streets in celebration of Soleimani's death.
Who cares what the Iraqi people think, right?
It has come out that Iranians were bribed with food to mourn Suleimani.
REMEMBER, it was a short time ago that the government was beating and killing protesters in Iran.
POLITICO REPORTED LAST YEAR:
U.S. envoy to Iran says as many as 1,000 protesters killed.
FAKE MOURNERS
In the city of Ahvaz, where large numbers of people turned out to mourn Soleimani, the government has forced students and officials to attend. It provided free transport and ordered shops to shut down. According to videos sent to a Washington Post journalist by people inside the country, the authorities are making little kids write essays praising the fallen commander.
First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani.
Reuters reported that more than 1,500 people were killed by security forces, including units of Soleimani’s Revolutionary Guard, and at least 7,000 have been arrested.
The Internet was shut down for five days. Tehran has yet to release official figures of its own, which suggests the death toll may have been even higher.
The protesters had harsh words for Soleimani and his foreign adventures, chanting against Iran’s involvement in Syria and its support of Hezbollah.
That came as a shock to the regime, which portrays Soleimani as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s adopted son.
Soleimani was not a benign official. In 1999, he was among the Revolutionary Guard leaders who demanded that then-President Mohammad Khatami crush university student demonstrations or face the consequences.
WHY ISN'T MAINSTREAM MEDIA FOCUSING ON THESE FACTS?
ONE REASON...THEY HATE TRUMP.
U.S. Media Prefers Foreign Pundits to Middle Eastern Voices.
Their coverage of Suleimani’s killing shows locals are still silenced.
Suleimani’s main impact, by far, was how he was perceived by the peoples of the region—not Americans or Westerners.
And that perception, by and large, was negative.
Suleimani was the leader of the Quds Force—a division within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps primarily dedicated to overseas operations and covert action of this deeply ideological outfit.
It was for that reason that Arab journalists like Kareem Shaheen, who spent years as a Guardian reporter throughout the Middle East, and Kim Ghattas focused, likewise, on how Syrians, Iraqis, and other victims of Suleimani’s Quds Force were going to interpret the news.
Suleimani’s activities in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon had targeted scores of Arabs who were either fighting against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad or protesting against their leaders in Beirut or Baghdad.
It’s true that finding people who actually know the region is the harder option. Those engaged in forming the nature of the debate in analytical circles and the media arena are often under a great deal of stress, particularly against the backdrop of fast-moving stories.
It’s easy to go to the regular talking head that we know on the basis of previous work—usually a white man of a particular professional class—even if that work is only tangentially related to the subject of hand. It will make for satisfying television, or a certain number of retweets on Twitter, and so forth.
But it is far more rewarding for listeners to benefit from years of experience and in-depth cultural understanding, rather than to trust talking heads who are utterly ignorant about the countries they are talking about.
There are scores of such figures who do know the region; who have spent years within it; who engaged in a lot of effort to understand it; who know the languages of it; and who, ultimately, see the peoples of it as complicated and complex as any Western population.
And as noted: It’s a grave responsibility. Informed policymakers are less likely to make reckless decisions that will engage their countries in turmoil abroad—or worse, take them to war.
It’s not a guarantee, of course—but it’s certainly better than the alternative of relying on a cast of interpreters who are fumbling in their own outdated phrasebooks.
EXPERTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND IRAN SAY IRAN'S ATTACKS ARE NOT OVER
The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, perhaps the second most powerful person in Iran behind Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, will reverberate in the Middle East and beyond for years, and perhaps decades. But the immediate consequences, several U.S. intelligence officials say privately, will be clear: more deaths, and some of them American.
Tuesday’s noisy attacks, despite the reassuring words of the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that they were a “proportionate measure,” were only the beginning.
Those killings will be carried out using tools Suleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike, himself built. The institution Suleimani led, the Quds Force—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ powerful hybrid military intelligence agency and covert action wing—midwifed Shiite extremist groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
Those same tools will now be brought to bear by Iran.
WE DIDN'T GO FAR ENOUGH TO STOP IRAN'S KILLING OF AMERICANS AND THEIR MIDDLE EAST ALLIES. THEY WILL DO IT AGAIN.
IRAN, UNDER SULEIMANI, HAD ATTACKED AMERICAN AND ALLIED FORCES IN IRAQ FOR YEARS.
HOW COULD ANYONE WHINING ABOUT THIS TODAY HAVE MISSED THE FACT THAT IRAN HAD BEEN KILLING AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ FOR OVER A DECADE?
December 16, 2019
(Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Monday he spoke with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi amid a spate of attacks on bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq and called on Baghdad to take steps to get the situation under control.
A senior U.S. military official warned last week that attacks by Iranian-backed groups on bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq were pushing all sides closer to an uncontrollable escalation.
Rocket strikes targeting Iraqi bases where members of the U.S.-led coalition are also stationed have increased in past weeksAsked who was behind the recent rocket attacks, Esper said: "My suspicion would be that Iran is behind these attacks, much like they are behind a lot of malign behavior throughout the region
Tension between the United States and Iran has risen as a result of U.S. sanctions that are hitting Tehran hard. The two sides have also traded blame over attacks on oil installations, militia arms depots and bases hosting U.S. forces.
NOVEMBER 23, 2019
The threat from Tehran continues to increase despite U.S. military buildup, U.S. Central Command’s Gen. Kenneth McKenzie says.
“My judgment is that it is very possible they will attack again.”
Since May, the Pentagon has dispatched 14,000 additional U.S. troops, an aircraft carrier, and tens of thousands of pounds of military equipment to the Middle East to respond to what it says are alarming new threats from Iran.
BUILDUP DURING 2018
Over the last 10 years, Iran has invested heavily in ballistic missiles and other capabilities in order to threaten its neighbors. Indeed, according to a new report on Iran’s military power from the Defense Intelligence Agency—the first of its kind—Tehran significantly increased its defense spending from its recent low in 2014 to $27.3 billion, or 6 percent of GDP, in 2018.U.S. officials are particularly concerned about the threat to critical desalination plants in the Gulf, said a senior U.S. military official in the region.
An attack on these facilities, which could threaten the region’s primary source of drinking water and potentially cause a humanitarian crisis, would be a “gamechanger,” the official said.
McKenzie sent the carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, on a transit through the Strait of Hormuz last week for the first time since it deployed to demonstrate U.S. naval power before it heads home. The Lincoln, which will soon be replaced by a new carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, was diverted to the Middle East in May to respond to the Iranian threat, but had remained in the Arabian Sea.
Although McKenzie believes the United States has robust defenses against Iran, there is only so much deterrence can do when faced with an irrational actor.
“Deterrence assumes there is going to be a rational actor on the other end,” he said. “There is a basic recklessness and irresponsibility to their actions that makes you very concerned about what they might do tomorrow or the next day, and that’s very concerning.”
November 5, 2019
Iran threatens US forces and allies who host American troops
A spokesman for Iran’s armed forces has threatened a “crushing response” against any U.S. aggression and allies who host American troops.
“Any place and any point of any territories which host the US and its allies’ interests will be threatened (in case of any war) and the Islamic Republic has proved that it has the capability to do so,” Brig. Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi said during a Sunday interview with Iranian Fars News Agency.
“Even if a country does not directly participate in any possible war but its territories host the enemy, we consider that country as a hostile territory and will treat it as an aggressor,” he said during the interview. “If an aggressor makes a strategic mistake, that aggression will be confronted with the strongest and the most crushing response.”
Meanwhile, Iranian President President Hassan Rouhani announced Tuesday that Iran would move a step closer to enriching uranium by injecting gas into more than 1,000 centrifuges, according to the New York Times.
The comments from the Iranian commander came a day before the 40th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis. In 1979, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 98 people captive for 444 days.
May 15, 2019
The current ramping up of U.S. military posturing against Iran was triggered by U.S. intelligence that showed Tehran-backed militias in Iraq moving rockets to locations that could hit bases where American troops are positioned in the nation, according to sources familiar with the intelligence.
Reuters cited a second Iraqi security source as saying communications intercepted by U.S. intelligence had shown that Iran-backed militias had “redeployed to take up suspicious positions, which the Americans considered provocations.”
Mr. Pompeo told top Iraqi military officials during a sudden visit to Baghdad on May 7 that Iraqi forces needed to keep the Iran-backed militias in check, according to the report by Reuters, which cited two Iraqi security sources as saying the secretary of state warned that Washington would respond with force if the militias weren’t contained.
“The message from the Americans was clear. They wanted guarantees that Iraq would stop those groups threatening U.S. interests,” a senior Iraqi military source with knowledge of Pompeo’s trip said, according to the report. “They said if the U.S. were attacked on Iraqi soil, it would take action to defend itself without coordinating with Baghdad.”
12 YEARS AGO!
July 2, 2007
FIVE AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILLED BY IRANIAN FORCES ATTACK PLAN
Iranian forces helped plan one of the most sophisticated militant assaults of the Iraq war — a January raid in which gunmen posed as an American security team and launched an attack that killed five U.S. soldiers, an American general said today.
U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner also accused Iran of using its Lebanese ally, the Shiite militia Hezbollah, as a “proxy” to arm Shiite militants in Iraq.
The claims were an escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq’s violence, which the government in Tehran has denied. It was also the first time the U.S. military has said Hezbollah has a direct role — which, if true, would bring a dangerous new player into Iraq’s conflict.
Documents captured with al-Khazaali showed that the Quds Force had developed detailed information on the U.S. position at the government building, “regarding our soldiers’ activities, shift changes and defenses, and this information was shared with the attackers,” Bergner said.
A total of 18 “higher-level operatives” from the Iranian-backed special groups have been arrested and three others killed since February, Bergner said."
JANUARY 8, 2020
Foreign Policy spoke with Matthew Reed, the vice president at Foreign Reports, an energy consultancy focused on the Middle East,
Foreign Policy: Despite the signs of de-escalation, there are also indications that Iran’s not done yet. The supreme leader spoke of further actions, and there’s still talk in Revolutionary Guard circles of more asymmetric attacks. Do you expect Iran to go back to its summer and fall playbook and go after regional energy infrastructure?
Matthew Reed: For as long as Trump is committed to his maximum pressure policy, the threat of these potshots and harassment tactics will remain. They might not act out immediately, but that playbook has been successful up to now, and their options are limited.
FP: Just this morning, there was a lot of alarm over the Strait of Hormuz, with some tanker companies halting transits, and concerns that Iran might be ready to close one of the world’s key oil chokepoints. Is closing Hormuz still an option for Iran, or is that a step too far?
MR: I think now more than ever the Iranians are looking to be creative and cause mayhem in new ways and in new places. If you look at what they are actually saying internally, and we’re talking about Iranian military officials talking to Iranian media, what they are talking about is Iran’s reach. When the Iranians talk about the geography of resistance, they are talking about being able to hit many targets and not necessarily directly. The Strait of Hormuz is so sensitive that if the Iranians attacked it head-on, or launched missiles from the coast at ships, it would trigger an open conflict with the United States.
By the way, Iran Changed Plane Crash Story as Photos of Missile Remains Appear
Iran is a rogue nation led by maniacal radicals intent on attaining nuclear capability to threaten the entire Middle East, the USA and our allies.
Iran had refused to turn over the plane’s flight recorders to Ukrainian, Canadian, American officials or to Boeing, the aircraft’s manufacturer.
Today, Iran reported it would hand over the box to Ukraine.
THEY HAVE NOW BEEN BUSTED BULLDOZING THE CRASH SITE TO REMOVE ALL EVIDENCE OF THE SHOOT-DOWN.
BUT LET THE LEFT CRY FOR IRAN.
Go ahead, American socialists, ignore facts, ignore our allies, ignore the people in Iraq and Iran who hated the butcher you're crying over, who have faced death when they protested Iran's cruel regime over the years. and keep supporting Iran, if you hate America and wish to be seen as guilty of sedition and treason.
Don't cry for these INNOCENTS most recently killed by Iran.
Newlyweds Arash Pourzarabi, 26, and Pouneh Gorji, 25, are among 30 Edmontonians killed when a plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Tehran International Airport in Iran.
Pedram Mousavi and Mojgan Daneshmand — both professors of engineering at the University of Alberta — perished along with their two young daughters, Daria, 14, and Dorina, 9.
More than 100 people gathered at a candlelight vigil outside the Alberta legislature in Edmonton on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 in memory of the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines crash in Tehran, Iran.
Amir Hossein Saeedinia, PhD student at the Center for Design of Advanced Materials at the University of Alberta, has been identified as a victim of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash outside Tehran International Airport. (Supplied photo)
University of Alberta student Nasim Rahmanifar.
//WW
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